Tag: MTNL

In their bid to lash out at the very staunch supporters of censorship and blatant liars and looters in general (read: the great Indian Internet Service Providers), Anonymous India has been doing pretty much the same thing that Anonymous Everywhere Else does:-

Get a bunch of friends and decide on a fairly useless website as the target (which usually does not have many servers to back up the content)

Giggle manically

????

PROFIT!! (Or at least, some drama)

So, Anon turned its head towards Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL), the State’s ISP for Mumbai and New Delhi and launched a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack on its corporate website, leaving many a head in the MTNL office scratching their heads.

This was done to protest against the censorship of several sites such as The Pirate Bay and Vimeo.

We are against Internet Censorship. Instead of blocking few URLs the ISP blocked the whole domain of various file sharing websites. The HC Madras, DoT didn’t isssue any list of websites to be blocked still ISP supported internet censorship.

Apparently MTNL’s managers have absolutely no idea why these sites are banned.

These sites are generally blocked due to court orders or directives from the Telecom Department. But I cannot say for sure

It is very mind boggling indeed. But if this is the case with an alleged court order, then I am very sure this DDoS would not be more than a minor irritation on some of these employees of MTNL, many of whom would be quite surprised to know that their ISP has a corporate website.

In an attempt to trigger a price war in the recently adopted 3G technology, MTNL Mumbai has launched Unlimited 3G Data Plan for just INR 750. And it’s a true unlimited plan unlike other operators (looking at Airtel) who in the name of unlimited have a FUP of 20GB.

But of course there’s a catch in the MTNL offer. In order to avail the INR 750 plan users need to subscribe for 6 months plan in advance. That is, when you get the INR 4500 package which is valid for six months it dilutes to INR 750 per month. Quite smart. If you do not want to risk subscribing for six months you can try out their two months Unlimited package for INR 2500 which boils down to INR 1250 per month.

MTNL already has a similar plan in Delhi circle and just like in Delhi, MTNL Mumbai also has a 200GB cap which when a user hits, excess charges are waved off. Which means this service is truly Unlimited.

Remember Bharat Berry? It was launched by a Jaipur based company to offer consumers with push e-mail services when there were talks about Govt.’s proposed permanent ban on Blackberry’s messaging and voice services in India. We have already told you about Bharat Berry when it was initially launched.

Now, MTNL (Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd.) has partnered with Bharat Berry to provide it’s customers in Delhi and Mumbai with various services such as Push Mail, Calendar and Contacts Sync. These services can be availed by any MTNL subscriber irrespective of the handsets they use. The basic requirements for Bharat Berry are that the handset should be java enabled and should have support for GPRS. Handsets supported include many from Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, LG, BlackBerry & HTC.

Packages & Pricing

Users can opt for either of e-mail or contact/calender sync services which are priced at Rs 50 each per month. However, a combo subscription for both the services is also available at Rs. 80 per month. Users can also opt for a free three month trial of Bharat Berry’s push mail services.

Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) Delhi has introduced a Power recharge coupon for Rs 399 for it’s Delhi customers. This power pack is really a powerful one as it comes with exciting freebies on SMS, local calls, and STD calls. The kind of services and offers this Power Recharge Coupon pack provides, it will surely capture a good niche among the subscribers.

Here are a few salient features of the MTNL Power Recharge coupon pack:

MTNL offers an amazing GPRS pack for its subscribers in Mumbai telecom circle. This pack offers unlimited GPRS usage without any Fair Usage Policy (FUP) for 1 month. MTNL has reduced the cost of unlimited GPRS usage from Rs.399 per month to Rs.98 per month.

Both the prepaid and postpaid subscribers can activate this special pack only for Rs.98. It comes with a validity of 30 days. MTNL also offers an unlimited GPRS pack for Rs.14 which comes with a 3 days validity. This recharge is not available for postpaid customers.

To activate GPRS on your MTNL number, prepaid subscribers can SMS “ACT GPRS” and send it to 444 while postpaid subscribers can SMS “GPRS” and send it to 555. This recharge is not applicable for the subscribers using 3G facility. You can get this recharge from any of the MTNL Customer service center or you can even recharge online at MTNL’s website.

If you remember, Mobile Number Portability (MNP) was to be introduced back in December 31st, 09 but that didn’t happen cause the operators weren’t ready technologically back then. The deadline was then extended to 31st March and now state owned telecom operators BSNL and MTNL are ready to meet the deadline. If you turned in late, MNP allows users to change their service provider without having to change their number.

Trai has fixed Rs 19 as the charge to be paid by a subscriber to avail the MNP service. The whole process of shifting from one operator to another would take a maximum of four days and you cannot shift between operators within four months after the first MNP shift. This is quite useful considering Google Voice is yet not available in India, which is a free service. Google Voice, allows users to add multiple number to Google account and all you need to do is give out your Google number to people. So, it wouldn’t matter if you change your service provider the next time, just log in to your Google account and change number. People would still be able to reach you at your Google number. Pretty neat. But that gets a bit technical for average people in India.

Currently, we have seen the call rates war between the operators and that’s just about to get more intense with introduction of MNP.

We yet haven’t heard about the next 3G auction date. As a matter of fact, in a public poll many voters suggested that the government should drop the 3G auction and concentrate on bringing in the 4G technology in India, so by the next 2-3 years we could actually use 4G connection and we could cope up with the latest technology. And to think of it, by that time I am sure everyone would also be flaunting a 4G mobile device with them.

While we talk about 3G and 4G, Airtel has launched an interesting GPRS plan for prepaid customers. With a recharge of 98 INR you will now be able to get 2GB free data usage plan and with multiple recharge you can extend the limit in multiples of 2. To counter attack BSNL launched five new plans with an unlimited download plan. The coming week, I expect Vodafone, Aircel and others to join the flame. It’s always better to have options.

As if caller tune was enough irritating on wireless connections, Airtel wants to cash on its 2.9 million fixed line connections with similar service. Airtel has launched a new service called Family Namewhere you can set your Family Name as caller tune for Rs.15 one time download and Rs.30 monthly subscription. Thousands of standard’ family names are available and more would be added soon.

Last week, we saw some astonishing figures and statics. Indian operators collectively signing up 19.1 million new subscribers for wireless services in December 2009. This is the highest figure so far for new subscribers in a month. India’s mobile subscriber base now touches 525.15 million. So by March 10 we could definitely cross the predicted 529 million subscribers. With this we have achieved the overall tele-density of 47.89. Take a look at the Net addition of wireless connection in the month of December 2010 in percentage.

Apart from that, we saw the launch of three new handsets last week. RIM introduced Blackberry BOLD 9700 in the Indian market with the price tag of 31,990 INR. It will be available on Airtel, Aircel, BSNL, Idea Cellular, Loop Mobile, MTNL, Reliance, Tata and Vodafone. Acer introduced it’s first Android based phone: Acer Liquid. This touch screen handset is priced at 24,990 INR. Nokia, launched Nokia 5233 a cheaper version of it touch screen Nokia 5230, just without 3G. Nokia 5233 will be available for 7500 INR which is almost 1000 INR cheaper than Nokia 5230.

MTNL Delhi, today announced the launch of new Trump Vidyarthi Plan offering Free unlimited intranet local calls and SMSes, free 3G service. This plan can be availed by all new and existing subscribers.

Plan Details:

Voucher: Rs.350/- for New subscribers and Rs.310/- for existing subscribers Validity: 30 days Benefits: Local calls to other networks will be charged 50 paise per minute while STD calls will be charged 75 paise per minute. Local video calls will be charged 20 paise per minute while STD video calls to be charged 75 paise per minute. It also offers Rs 106, free 100 local video calls and 100 MB GPRS/3G data usage Circle: Delhi